Why Are You Voting for Democrats on November 8? A True Blue Liberal Twitter Poll.

There are so many reasons, of course, but what's your number one reason to #VoteBlueIn2022?

Do you want to protect democracy and the rule of law by defeating election deniers and #TrumpCoupAttempt co-conspirators and apologists? Protect a woman's right to choose by electing Democrats who will codify the protections of Roe v. Wade legislatively and defeating Republicans, some of whom would outlaw abortion nationally? Protect Social Security and Medicare from Republicans under Rick Scott who promise to end these "entitlement" programs that so many of us depend upon (and have paid dedicated taxes to support throughout our working lives)? Or is it some other issue that rises to the top for you this November (if so, add in the comments here and on Twitter)? 

 This poll will be open for a week.

POLL:

There are so many reasons, but what's your number one reason to #VoteBlueIn2022?

Protect Democracy and the Rule of Law? Protect a Woman's Right to Choose? Protect Social Security and Medicare? Or Something Else (add in the comments)?

— True Blue Liberal ☮️ (@TrueBlueLiberal) October 18, 2022

"Her Body! Her Choice!"

I'm a middle-aged American white guy, so I should have absolutely no say in what any woman decides to do with her body. Period.

Neither should these 25 middle-aged American white guys (The Guardian has supplied mug shots) who voted yesterday in Alabama to outlaw abortion (with sentences of 99 years in an Alabama prison for doctors who perform the procedure) from conception, even in cases of rape and incest (yes, the doctor would get a longer sentence than the rapist).

January 21, 2017. Washington, D.C.

Reading about the men of Alabama blithely stripping away the rights of the women of Alabama, I keep thinking back to the Women's March in D.C. on the day after the current occupant of the White House moved in. We couldn't get near the speakers on Independence Avenue, but sat most of the day perched precariously on top of leftover inauguration-day cyclone fencing just outside the Hirschhorn Museum taking lots of photographs of the massive overflow crowd filling the Mall. One of the most common chants that we heard was "My Body! My Choice!" All of the men in my area would respond with a loud, "Her Body! Her Choice!" That's the echo I keep hearing today. I want to scream it again, but since I'm sitting here alone by a computer, I'll scream it into cyberspace hoping that one of those self-righteous holier-than-thou Alabamian legislators might get the message that women's bodies (in addition to being complete mysteries to them) are also none of their business.

As men we have the right to say, "Her body, her choice," or we can shut the fuck up. Period.

Did Donald Trump Just Attack a Fetus?

Earlier today NPR News posted this Trump quote from last night's speech about his courtship of the Nixonesque/Spirovian Silent Majority as "The 1 Passage You Need To Read To Understand Donald Trump's Appeal":

"The 'silent majority' believe me is back, and I think we can use it somewhat differently. I don't think we have to call it a silent majority anymore, because they're not silent. People are not silent.
"They're disgusted with our incompetent politicians.

"They're disgusted with the people who are giving our country away.

"They're disgusted when they tell the border-patrol agents, who are good people and can do the job — they're disgusted when they allow the people to just walk right in front of them, and they're standing there helpless, and people just pour into the country.

"They're disgusted when a woman who's nine months pregnant walks across the border, has a baby, and you have to take care of that baby for the next 85 years.[emphasis added]

"They're disgusted by what's happening to our country. And you're going to look around. You're going to remember who the people are that are here, because we're doing something special.

"This is a movement. We're going to make our country great again — believe me. We will make our country great again."

The tone of resentment is perfect for his target audience, but he should know by now that, according to the official Republican Manual of Cultural Warfare, you can attack anybody but a fetus.

I'd actually be more impressed than disgusted by a nine-month-pregnant woman able to walk across our southern border (although am I out of line assuming he means the Mexican border and not the Canadian border?).

Has Newt Gingrich been vetted by a qualified graphologist?

I found this signed "Personhood Republican Presidential Candidate Pledge" of Newt Gingrich's on the PersonhoodUSA.com website. This is the personhood group that wants personhood for zygotes, not personhood for corporations, though the overlap between right-wing groups that want to award personhood to both (while removing it from Mexicans, students, and elderly African-American voters) is large.

But this post isn't about strange pledges from fringe groups or the even stranger GOP compulsion to sign them all. This is about the handwriting on Newt's form. I'm not a trained graphologist, but I don't want the hand that held this pen anywhere near any nuclear buttons or any other lever of power: 

Rick Santorum gets his five inches of fame on TBL dot org.

Rick Santorum isn't actually in this Santorum video, but we just couldn't believe that Herman Cain is being damned for three minutes - and losing the vote of America's fetuses - just because Piers Morgan forced him to admit an obvious truth about how criminal it would be to have a government that would make the victim of a sexual crime carry a rapist's embryo.

When he finally calls it quits in his current role in the travelling clown circus, at least Santorum will always be famous for his one lasting contribution to the English language.